Long seen as potential villains – turns out data indicates coffee and tea maybe the good guys!
Coffee and tea have been seen as villains for the body. Â An entire industry has popped up around alternatives to just good coffee or a piping hot cuppa tea. There is a rough estimate the world drinks three cups of tea for every cup of coffee. And tea is the second most popular beverage in the world (behind water). Now science is indicate Coffee, tea and good health may go together.
The study, published in PLOS Medicine, surveyed data on 360,000 people between the ages of 50 and 74, looking for their coffee and tea drinking habits and incidents of dementia and strokes over the years. After the initial survey was conducted, these same participants were followed up with 11 years later, allowing researchers to compare and contrast.
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The study concluded participants who drank two to three cups of any of these two drinks a day fared better than those who didn’t drink them at all. The sweet spot was found when people consumed the amount of each beverage daily (4 to 6 cups total), resulting in a 28% lower risk of dementia and 32% lower risk of a stroke.
In an email exchange with CNN, Dr. Lee H. Schwamm, chair of the American Stroke Association Advisory Committee and chair in Vascular Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, explained while the study was intriguing there was no way of establishing causation from this initial data.
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“We cannot impute causality, and say ‘drinking more coffee or tea is good for your brain.’ What we can only say in this study, people who reported moderate coffee/tea drinking were less likely to have a stroke or dementia occur in the 10 years of follow-up,” he said.
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Coffee has long been associated with preventing a wide range of diseases and improving heart health. Still, it’s always important to approach caffeine in moderation, managing your coffee intake without keeping too much of a stern hold on it. When it comes to tea, studies have found links suggest lower odds of cardiovascular disease, better teeth, and even protection against cancer.
In short, go for the warm drink in the morning, and don’t overthink it if you get the urge to have more later on in the day.
